Weak performance for Northeast Florida stocks

Weak performance for Northeast Florida stocks (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Daily Record) — With the Standard & Poor’s 500 index closing the first half of 2024 near a record high, you might assume it’s been a good year for Jacksonville stocks.

However, stocks of most companies based in Northeast Florida dropped in the first six months of the year.

Fourteen of the 19 stocks declined in the first half of 2024 and the worst performers – among stocks that trade above $1 – were two companies that had successful initial public offerings in 2021: Treace Medical Concepts Inc. and Dream Finders Homes Inc.

Ponte Vedra-based Treace, which produces surgical treatments for bunions and other foot issues, plunged in May after lowering its growth forecasts and finished the six-month period down 48%.

Homebuilder Dream Finders was actually the best performer among Jacksonville-based companies in 2023, tripling in price. But it has been falling in the last two months after reporting lower-than-expected first-quarter earnings, and with homebuilding stocks in general falling.

Treace went public at $17 in April 2021 and traded as high as $37.17 in June 2021, but the stock had fallen back and after the recent drop, it finished the first half of the year at $6.65, well below the IPO price.

Dream Finders, which sold for $13 in its January 2021 IPO, continued to rise in the first quarter of 2024 and reached a record high of $44.38 in March.

It finished the first half of the year at $25.82, still above its IPO price but down sharply from its high.

The overall poor performance of Jacksonville companies is not a surprise when you realize that the big jump in the S&P 500 was due mainly to a surge in one company, chipmaker Nvidia Corp.

The Wall Street Journal reported Nvidia accounted for 30% of the total return in the S&P 500, which gained a total of 14.5% in the first six months of the year.

The Journal said the average S&P 500 stock is close to its level at the beginning of 2022 and more than half are lower.

Jacksonville has three S&P 500 companies and two of them, CSX Corp. and Regency Centers Corp., are trading slightly below their January 2022 levels.

The other S&P 500 stock, Fidelity National Information Services Inc., is down sharply from its early 2022 level but was one of the top gainers in the first half this year, rising 25%.

The top two gainers were stocks that had been beaten down heading into 2024. Space technology firm Redwire Corp. rose 152% and cellulose specialties product company Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. rose 34%.

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